Hearts!

This week we talked a lot about hearts, love, and how to be kind.  We heard several Valentine's Day stories including Mousie's First Valentine.  Our puppet, Mousie, helped us read this one!
We decorated our Valentine Bags at art center this week.  The kids used scissors to cut out a heart shape, wrote their name on the heart, glued it on the bag and then decorated the bag with lots of heart stickers. (Some kids did it all on their own, some needed a little guidance.)

Other activities during activity time included making fossils with Mrs. Swietlik, working on puzzles and card games with Mrs. Chyko, playing with the snow tub, cars, kitchen center, magnetic letters, stencils, blocks and airplanes.

One of the fossils we made using shells and toy dinosaur footprints!

We had Music with Mrs. Jenkins on Wednesday and at the end of the day G.G., Hadley's Grandma, came in to read some stories to us about Valentines Day.  We love listening to her read stories to us...we can tell she was an actress!!

The kids are very excited about the Valentine's Party we're having at school on Tuesday...looking forward to it!!

A few of the fireworks we made last week....

G.G.reading to us!

We had some type of bug going around our class last week, 5 of us were absent on Wednesday!!  

Chinese New Year

We heard  stories and songs about Chinese New Year this week.  We watched several videos too.  One of the kids favorite was the story of the Chinese zodiac.  Here's the link in case they want to watch it again at home: The Chinese New Year

We learned how to say Happy New Year in Chinese (Gung Hay Fat Chee), found China on the globe, learned that the festival is 15 days long and a family holiday where red envelopes with money (lucky money) are given to children by their elders.  In our class, each child got their own red envelope with their name written in Chinese characters.  The kids were fascinated that China uses symbols instead of letters.  Here is the website for the "Chinese Alphabet" that we used to write their names.Chinese Alphabet

Our version of a Dragon Dance.

We pretended to have a traditional family dinner and ate mandarin oranges and long noodles (ramen noodles) for snack.  The kids had fun trying to eat the verrry long noodles!  During Chinese New Year long noodles are served to represent a long life and oranges represent good luck.

Long noodles for long life and mandarin oranges for good luck and happiness.

At art center we used glue and glitter on black paper to represent all of the fireworks that are set off during this celebration!  We talked about how people all over the world like to watch fireworks and spend time with their family!

Grace was our "Maple Leaf" this week.  Her mom and dad came in on Tuesday with Grace's new kitten!  The kitten walked around our room and everyone had a chance to pet her. The kids also liked watching her walk back into her carrying case when she felt a little overwhelmed...and then she would peek her head out and come out again.   Wednesday Grace brought in some delicious homemade chocolate cupcakes...boy were they good.  Thanks Grace for helping make our week so special!

Grace, her mom, dad and  kitten!

Mrs. Chyko worked with us on floor puzzles during activity time.  Here's one we put together!

Teeth

We had fun talking about teeth this week.  We read the pop up book Brush Your Teeth Please. Click the link to see the book.  The kids really enjoyed looking through this on their own after we read it as a class!   pop up book

We also read the book The Mitten and Tooth Trouble, both stories about animals with big teeth!

The kids each shared something they know about teeth and about going to the dentist.

We learned a song called Brush Your Teeth by Raffi.  We had fun singing it all week!  Brush Your Teeth song

Ellis was our Maple Leaf of the Week.  Her mom and dad are both chefs so they brought in homemade cupcakes (yum!!) and let the kids decorate them. We had so much fun doing this for snack on Thursday.  Thanks Ellis and family for helping make our week so special!

A beautiful cupcake and delicious too!!

Ellis's parents helping us frost and decorate cupcakes!

Other things we worked with during the week included Play Mobile vet center, Play Mobile fire truck and figurines, trains, cars, blocks, polar animals, kitchen center, stencils, and Calico Critters Play House and figurines.  Mrs. Chyko showed us how to use a toothbrush to paint a tooth shaped cut out. We loved mixing the colors on the tooth!  Mrs. Swietlik helped us make a hippo using mini marshmallows as their teeth and Mrs. Gould helped us make a dinosaur out of shapes.

Our teeth painted with a toothbrush!

Some dinosaurs have big teeth!!

Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs was what we talked about this week!  We heard a lot of dinosaur stories, played with dinosaurs, put together dinosaur puzzles, and pretended to be dinosaurs!!  We listened to Wee Sing about Dinosaurs during activity times. We also did the Dinosaur Stomp with Mrs. Jenkins and Mrs. Swietlik helped us practice our numbers by doing a dinosaur dot to dot!

Besides talking about dinosaurs, we had extended day, a birthday, and pajama day this week.

Tanner was our birthday boy and "Maple Leaf" and he brought in French doughnuts that his dad made for a special treat on Wednesday. Yum!!  We had enough so we could have some on Thursday with our hot chocolate too!!   On Thursday, Tannar's mom and little brother came in with a craft for us to create.  We had a blast punching out pieces, glueing them onto a paper bag, adding stickers and creating puppet animals!!  Thanks Tanner and family for making our week so special and Happy 5th birthday!!

Our birthday boy....singing Happy Birthday.

Homemade French Doughnuts!!

Hot chocolate, doughnuts and pajamas!

Pajama day and puppets...so much excitement!!

Our finished snowmen...we have terrific artists at Maple Leaf!!

'Maple Leaf of the Week"

We started "Maple Leaf of the Week" this week.  Sam was our first "leaf"!  She brought in a poster all about herself and shared it with the class.  She also brought in a delicious snack of ham sticks, string cheese and crackers.  It was a big hit...nearly all of the kids wanted seconds on everything!! Thursday, we met Sam's mom and uncle.  We learned that Sam and her family foster sick dogs and cats and then return them to the Humane Society when they're all better.  Her uncle trains therapy dogs and he brought in a 4 month old puppy to share with the class.  The kids were able to give him treats and pet him.  Thanks for helping create such a special week for us!!

Other highlights of the week:

• We made snow slime.
• We heard the books The Jacket You Wear in the Snow, Tacky the Penguin and Lars the Polar Bear.
• We are painting on the back of a muffin tin and creating beautiful "dot" art.  As the children finish we're hanging it up to decorate our classroom.  Make sure to ask your child to show you their work!
• We're still finishing our snowman projects with Mrs. Chyko.
• We had music with Mrs. Jenkins on Wednesday.
• Mrs. Swietlik helped us with play dough and pearler beads on Wednesday.
• We've been singing our A,B,C's nearly every day.  As we sing, I point to the letters in our circle time room.  Then we sing our "A,B, Sounds".  This gets the kids giggling but is a great way to practice all the letters we're learning!

Passing around snow slime during circle time.

Our Maple Leaf of the Week!  Thanks for the yummy snack!

Adding the ingredients....glue, water, and liquid starch!

Mixing up our snow slime.  We all had a chance to help stir.  

Wow....what is it?  Is it liquid or solid?  It's snow slime!!!  

Just a reminder that this Saturday is our Open House for New Families.  Please share the information if you know of anyone looking for a preschool for next year.  Thanks!

Welcome Back

It was so good to see everybody again!  The kids enjoyed sharing their toys at Show and Tell on Tuesday.  They were also glad to see Mrs. Jenkins and sing some new songs!  During center time we turned the sand table into The Arctic.  We filled the tub with snow (potato flakes) igloos, a dog sled,  beluga whales, penguins, seals, polar bears and lots of other arctic animals!  Its' been one of the favorite areas for the kids to play.

Other new activities were painting a snowman with Mrs. Chyko.  Next week we'll work on decorating our snowmen.  We used white glitter clay to create a snowman sculpture at the art table with Mrs. Gould.  We put perler beads out for the kids to use in the morning and when Mrs. Swietlik visits on Wednesdays.

We heard lots of stories about snowmen this week including There Was An Old Lady who Swallowed some Snow, The Jacket I Wear in the Snow, Snowballs, and The Snowman by Raymond Briggs.  After we read The Snowman we went into the music room and Mrs. Gould played the piano while we acted out the story to the music.  There is a full length (30 mins) video of this available online if you'd like to let your child view it at home.  In case you haven't seen it, it's a beautiful video.  Here's the link:

The Snowman Video


Have a great week end!

Winter sing

The week before Christmas break was filled with excitement!  Finding Freddy Sparkelberry was the first thing we did each morning during circle time.  He left notes for us too, letting us know that our singing and bell choir sounded beautiful! We found him upstairs near the sanctuary listening to us practice for our winter show! We listened to Christmas music during center time and had fun using peppermint scented play dough and Christmas cookie cutters.  The highlight of the week was singing for our family and friends on Thursday.  Thank you parents for all the goodies you provided for the reception afterwards.  Happy Holidays!

We celebrated Ellis' 3rd birthday!!  She brought in yummy cupcakes for a special treat.  Happy Birthday, Ellis!!

Ellis' birthday treat...pretty as well as delicious!

We worked on turning a red triangle into Santa!  We also had fun finishing and wrapping our Christmas ornaments during center time.

We used beads to decorate our play dough Christmas trees!

Play dough was a favorite activity!